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Mood of the Nation 2012

Each January UMR releases the Mood of the Nation, an update on key poll results throughout the previous calendar year. The January 2012 edition includes a special 20 year retrospective, looking at how results have changed since the UMR Telephone Omnibus began in 1991.

Highlights of Mood of the Nation 2012 include:

After hitting record highs in 2009 and 2010, the proportion of New Zealanders who believed that the country was headed in the right direction was down in 2011. The average number saying that New Zealand was heading in the right direction was 58%, down from 65% in 2009 and 60% in 2010. The average mood would have been lower if it had not been for an improvement around the time of the Rugby World Cup.

36% expected 2012 to be a worse year for New Zealand than 2011, up from 23% when the equivalent question was asked in 2010.

The proportion of New Zealanders who say that they are generally happy with their lives hit a new low of 63% in May 2011, compared with a peak of 85% in June 2007.

National and Labour both finished the year well down on where they were at the beginning of the year, while the Greens hit record highs.

The proportion of New Zealanders who viewed John Key favourably fell from 81% in December 2011 (higher than any previous prime minister) to 63% in December 2011.

The issues New Zealanders were most concerned about were the economy, jobs and cost of living.

Nurses remained New Zealand's most respected occupation, followed by doctors, teachers and then the police. Politicians were near the bottom of the list, but ahead of real estate agents, investment bankers and share brokers.